He was sexually attracted to his father and realized he was gay when he was ten, and often had orgasms wrestling with other boys. "I used to go into his dressing room in the morning while he was doing physical exercises almost naked, in his undershorts," he once said. "I can still remember liking the hardness of his muscles and the smell of his body." But it wasn't until Isherwood was in college, and was in his late teens or early twenties, that he actually first had sex with another man.

Christopher Isherwood (when 48) met Don Bachardy (when 18) and had a relationship for 32 years.